Getting Involved in the City Government

At the Coffee Talk we hosted for our city councilman, Greg Stanton, I expressed to him a sincere desire for our church to become part of the solution to the issues effecting the city. I told him that I didn't quite know what those issues were, but that I would like to visit with him at a later date to get some ideas from him.

To my surprise someone called from his office the very next day and we arranged a meeting. Over a 60 minute conversation Greg and I brainstormed how our church could come along aside the city and help them achieve their mission. We came up with about 15 ideas.

Our church eventually whittled those 15 ideas down to two, (working with the neighborhood senior center and hosting a child safety day) His office referred us to the person in charge of overseeing all 17 Senior Centers in Phoenix and we set a meeting with the staff of the center and a few of our people.

Over a 60 minute meeting six of us brainstormed how our church could come along the side of the Senior Center and help them. We came up with about 10 ideas and whittled them down to three: a tutoring program for high school, a sewing circle to make lap blankets for hospital patients, and sending birthday cards to the elderly who can't make it out of their houses.

The Tutoring Program
I had a prior meeting with the Principal at Camelback High School to discuss how we could become involved in helping them achieve their goals. Tutoring was the number one need so we decided to create a tutoring program. (We had a strong degree of confidence that we could pull this off because one of the members of our congregation taught at Camelback for 35 years and has been inducted into their Wall of Fame. She was also fired up to help out.) We threw this idea on the table and the staff at the Senior Center jumped all over it.

So we set up another meeting with Camelback, Morningside, and the Senior Center and mapped out how we were going to pull this off. (See Getting Involved in the School System post)

We are just beginning our relationship with the Senior Center and our church is very encouraged with the meetings and willingness of the staff from the center to allow us to partner with them. We will see where this goes as we seek to penetrate this city and transform it for Christ. Please pray for this relationship.